


Confess (And All Will Be Forgiven)

by Durtyburd



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Based on a Twitter Post, Body Horror, Closeted Character, College AU, Confessions, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Homophobia, Horror, Horrorish, In which Keith Hunk Lance and Pidge enter a haunted church and fuck up, Inaccurate Christianity, M/M, Multi, Shirogane twins, Swearing, Well...I mean...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 17:34:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20624876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Durtyburd/pseuds/Durtyburd
Summary: Based on a twitter post about how to explore abandoned churches.In which Keith, Pidge, Lance and Hunk do just that, all the wrong ways and then I slam the throttle down and take over on the plot.“It’s empty.” She said, softly. The wind whistled through the altar again. Lance looked confused.“What?”“The Bible is blank.”Keith heard it first. The grinding of stone on stone in the altar behind them.And as he turned, in an explosion of total black, everything went dark.-"Let me out of here!"“I can’t!” The clergyman shouted, “I didn’t bring you here!”“Then who did?” Keith ground out; fists clenched.“He…The Father did.”“Why? Take me to him!”“He wants you to confess…”





	Confess (And All Will Be Forgiven)

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't reflect my views of Christianity in any way! It was just something I thought up while doing nothing in a dentist's office.

They weren’t exploring that abandoned church. Fuck no. Fuck. No.

“No, no. Absolutely not.” Keith folded his arms across his chest and pushed books off his desk into his bag. He wasn’t going to linger, he knew what usually followed.  
“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Pidge pleaded, eyes shining through her glasses in an attempt to goad him.  
“Yeah, man. Don’t be a buzzkill.”  
“Shut up, _Lance_.” Keith hissed. “You’re more of a wuss when it comes to spooky shit than anyone else.” He shot a glare at Hunk, who withered briefly before puffing his chest out.

“Katie, I really don’t think it’d be safe…Think about the structural integrity of that place.” Hunk stabbed his fork into his lunch, a stressed crease forming between his brows as he spoke over Lance’s indignant squawk. “I drove past it the other day and it looked like the steeple was about to collapse!”

Keith startled briefly, expecting Hunk to have already been roped into going and not likely to jump to his defense. Having someone on his side was a welcome change.

Pidge grabbed his arm as he stood to leave, deflecting the balled-up napkin that Lance threw at his forehead, who was still stewing about being called a coward and mumbling under his breath something in Spanish.

“…-oy un cobarde, _el __cabrón_” 

Keith might not understand much Spanish, but he understood enough to know what _that _meant, and immediately began to leap the table dividing them, which only made Lance spew profanities and curses faster, eyes narrowing.

“I’ll get you, you little SHIT.”

“_Keith_” Hunk said, exasperatedly, reaching for his shirt and tugging him back down.

“Hunk.” Pidge said, and Keith winced at her tone, knowing that some good old-fashioned Holt Blackmail was about to take place. He braced and felt Hunk’s grip on his shirt tighten too. No one was immune to Holt Blackmail, and somehow, Matt’s little sister used it so much more effectively than he ever did.

“If you don’t come with, I’ll tell dad that you decided you didn’t want to come with us to Eat Street Markets next Saturday.”  
Hunk’s expression wavered, and he looked about ready to tell Pidge to stick it where the sun didn’t shine. Keith sighed in relief, sitting back down.

“_Fine.”_

What. No!

“I’m not going with you then.” Keith said promptly. “Mom and Dad would kill me if they found out that’s where we were going.”

It wasn’t an untrue statement. For the grown son of the Chief of Police and her husband to be caught trespassing on condemned property? Unheard of.

Well, not entirely. It wasn’t like Keith hadn’t been caught before for trespass and being out after curfew, among other things. But he was an adult now, in college no less. He had an example to set, and between him and nobody else, his mother’s rage and disappointment could still level towns in Keith’s heart even at twenty-two years old.

He would very much like to still have a bedroom to go back to when semester ended, too.

“Come _on_!” Pidge whined, and Hunk sat down, defeated by the lure of walking the pier under the soft glow of fairy lights and sampling the sweet, salty, savory and sour of where the desert met the bay. “It’ll be it’ll be just like that Unsolved series on You-Tube!”

“Pidge, no one watches that garbage except you.” Keith retorted, picking up what was left of his lunch, appetite thoroughly ruined in a way only a drive-thru strawberry sundae could remedy. He made a mental note to pick one up on the way back to his apartment.

“Excuse me? Everyone watches it except you!” Lance retorted, mouth half-full of some spicy whatever that Keith was too annoyed to really take notice of, though he could smell the spice from here. “It’s amazing.”

“And I’ve already stolen the torches from dad’s garage, so you can’t say no.” Pidge said, and Hunk heaved a heavy sigh. “_And_ I’ve packed salt and I bought some holy water off eBay.”

“Ooh, how useful. Some tap water from Michigan will be incredibly helpful in warding off imaginary demons I’m sure, Pidge.”

“It’s not like I actually believe in them, Keith.” Pidge said, sounding offended in a breathy, over dramatic way. Her tone changed back immediately, overly peppy. “It’s just assurance.”

“I still don’t think this is a good idea, for the record.” Hunk interjected, sounding vaguely queasy. Keith felt none of that apprehension, just annoyance tolling through his head clear as day. This was not something he was doing. Nope. He swung his bag up over his shoulder and snatched his water bottle off the table, turning away from the trio.

“Yeah, me neither Hunk. Sorry, Pidge. Count me out.”

Walking back to his car, turned away from his friends, he didn’t see the willful, raptorial look Pidge shot at his back.

* * *

It wasn’t that Keith believed in ghosts and demons and the like, that sort of thing was for children and skeptics who didn’t walk under ladders or thought that breaking a mirror would bring them years of bad luck. It was more that he didn’t know. What was he expected to say? ‘Yes Pidge! I will walk into an abandoned building with you in the dead of night!’

“What sane person does that?” He said aloud and to no one in particular, with his eyes on the ceiling. His curtains fluttered softly in the breeze as though in answer, and he sighed. The alarm clock bathed the room in a dim red light, the accusing numbers glaring 7:43 at him, as though in challenge. He wondered what they would be doing right now. Would they be inside the church already, jumping at every groan of the floorboards and shrieking at the skittering of mice in the walls? Falling through the rotten floor, when no one knew where they were…?

Keith jumped as his phone beeped at him lamely, and the screen lit up with a notification. Cursing, he picked it up.

_[Sent 7:44pm]  
Pidge: Hey, you coming with?_

For god’s sake.

Keith sat up and pulled on his jacket with a scowl, tugging on his boots and gloves and pocketing his phone.

_[Sent 7:47pm]  
Keith: Be right there._

* * *

Keith regretted saying yes the whole drive there, but what else was he supposed to do? Let them fall through into the basement of a building on the edge of town where no one really went? Something bad was bound to happen.

And if Keith felt the hairs on his arms rise as he approached the church, seeing Pidge, Hunk and Lance leaned up against the side of her old beater car, then he didn’t think much about it.

“Knew you’d show.” Pidge said smugly, and Keith slammed the door of his car to show his disapproval.  
“Whatever, can we just get this done?”  
A torch, a small package of salt that looked suspiciously like drugs – better not take that home to mom at the end of summer – and a little silver bottle of water were tossed his way, and he caught them against his chest.

“You probably won’t need those.” Hunk said, sounding just faintly like he was speaking things he wished to happen into existence. Keith briefly considered wishing he was back in his bed, if that was the way things worked at present.

Lance was sitting on the hood of Pidge’s car and Keith tried to think of a barb comparing him to the peeling clear coat, but nothing came to mind. Disappointing.

Keith’s eyes turned towards the church, and he frowned.

It was by no means a little building. He’d seen it in passing, and he knew its location, but he hadn’t exactly taken the time to look at it properly. In fact, in the light of day it really had looked like nothing stood on this street corner at all.

The facade of the church was aged, and Keith could immediately see the reasons for the “No Trespassers – Site Condemned” sign. The arcade’s arches were covered with blackened lichen and crumbling where they weren’t supported by vines. What few windows remained were broken in a few places, stained in dark colours. Others had been shattered entirely, leaving holes like gaping maws in the walls of the church where they had once been.

The church was decidedly Gothic in appearance, its parapets topped with gargoyles with oddly catlike faces, each different from the first, but all with sharp teeth, large ears and eyes that almost seemed to emit a faint yellow glow.  
Keith turned his gaze on the closest one, and the odd glow disappeared. Must have been a trick of the streetlights.

The Tympanum atop the door looked to have once depicted some sort of scene, but age and weather had worn apart all but the faint outlines of what had once been, the arches and lintels chipped and crumbling into little piles on the cracked entry floor, mixing with broken pieces of colourful cathedral glass. The keystone of the arch lay there too, though Keith hadn’t noticed the gap where it had come from.

Once upon a time, Keith supposed it had been a very strange, but very beautiful church.

There was a beat of silence in which no one said anything, and Keith felt a building pressure in the air around them. He flicked the switch on his torch to test the batteries, and the feeling went away, the moment broken.

“Alright, lessgo.” Lance said, heaving himself over the hood of Pidge’s car and walking backwards towards the rusty church gate. “Let’s go see some ghosties. Hope there’s a hot nun.”

“_Lance.”_ Hunk hissed, eyes darting towards the church as though he expected some terrible specter to come barreling out towards them. The half-collapsed spire atop the entryway arches creaked pathetically, and it almost sounded like a growl.  
“Jeez, this place really is falling apart.” Keith remarked, and Hunk gave a stressed laugh.  
“Well, now you’ve seen it, maybe we can just all go home.” Hunk attempted, but the glint in Pidge’s eyes was a dangerous one, and she was not to be dissuaded.

“Nope!” She said simply, and in one breath’s moment disappeared under the eave of the church.

“_Shit!_” Keith swore, and darted inside after her.

* * *

The inside of the church was…much like the outside.

It was, well, old and crumbling and obviously was once an opulent, not at all humble church.

The lobby-like room – an old sign affectionately labelled it the “Narthex” in flaked lettering – was in a slightly better state than the outside, though patches of star-speckled sky peeked in through cracks and holes in the vaulted ceiling and broken windows. The marble flooring was filthy underfoot and falling to pieces in places.

Keith felt a rush of cold, like the breeze coming in the front door had suddenly turned frozen.  
He pulled his jacket on tighter. To his left, Hunk looked about ready to vomit all over the old flooring. Lance flashed his torchlight in Keith’s eyes as he turned to look at him on his right.  
“Ow, Asshole!”  
“Take a picture it’ll last longer.”  
  
“Hey, guys!” Pidge’s voice echoed back to them from the sanctuary. “Come in here!”

Shaking the frozen feeling from his skin, Keith walked through the doorway into the sanctuary ahead, passing by a faded picture of a cross. The workings of it in the marble appeared to be split horizontally by a large slash-shaped crack. The wooden plaque beside it was aged, and all Keith could read was “Consecration” and “Glory”, and the rest was smeared with some black dried substance, or simply gone.

His skin prickled uneasily as they walked the aisle, past pews of rotting wood, their rows skewed and crooked.

“Guys,” Hunk murmured. “We should really leave…”

Pidge was standing at the pulpit before the altar, flicking through a book Keith guessed was the bible.  
“Hey,” She repeated, and a blast of cold air swept down from the cracked windows of the clerestory above them, wrapping Keith in its cold fingers. “Look at this.”

Keith walked to the pulpit first, turning his back to the altar and looking at the yellowed pages of the bible as she flipped the pages.  
“It’s empty.” She said, softly. The wind whistled through the altar again. Lance looked confused.  
“What?”  
“The Bible is blank.”  
  
Keith heard it first. The grinding of stone on stone in the altar behind them.

And as he turned, in an explosion of total black, everything went dark.

* * *

It was like a ripple went through his vision, blanketing the room in sheer darkness, then graying out until Keith could see once more. He felt his stomach turn and heave, and a cold sweat form on his brow, quite like he was about to hurl all over his feet.

He was standing among the rows of pews, feet back from the pulpit. Lance, Hunk and Pidge were nowhere to be seen. His water, his salt and his torch were gone.

The church was…it was beautiful, but it was as though Keith was seeing it in greyscale. The arches were smooth and free of cobwebs. The ceiling and windows were whole, and light gleamed in and shone a kaleidoscope of patterns onto the floor from the clerestory.

The pulpit was empty, and Keith decided immediately that now was not the time to fuck around with religious books, and booked it down the aisle into the Narthex, wrapping his hands around the handles of the great doors and pulling hard. The wood creaked, had no give.

“It won’t open.” Came the voice from behind him, and Keith felt a spike of cold, biting back on his noise of shock as he whirled around, back pressed to the doors. “I’m sorry.”

The man before him was in pristine robes. What colour they were, Keith couldn’t be sure. His face was basked in stained glass colour thrown from one of the windows. And…shit. He was handsome. His dark hair was combed back from his face, youthful and well-proportioned. His eyes were steely and lined with dark lashes and betrayed no real emotion but pained regret. He looked like a clergyman. An incredibly attractive one, and in the moment, Keith almost forgot his terror. Almost.

“Who are you? Where are my friends?” Keith spat, his heart in his throat and tension singing through his body.  
“My name is Takashi Shirogane.” The clergyman spoke, eyeing Keith strangely, with pity. “Your friends didn’t enter with you.”  
“They did! I saw them come in with me! I followed one into this church!”

“Keith,” Takashi said. “They didn’t enter with you.”  
“How do you know my name!?”  
“Keith, please I-“  
“Take me to them!” Keith shouted. “Let me out of here!”

“I can’t!” The clergyman shouted, “I didn’t bring you here!”  
“Then who did?” Keith ground out; fists clenched.

“He…The Father did.”  
“Why? Take me to him!”  
“He wants you to confess…”

Keith’s blood ran cold. Confess?

“Please, you need to find some way out of here…” Takashi pleaded. “Before-“

A shadow swept over the both of them, and Takashi visibly shrunk, curling into himself with a whimper.  
“Welcome.” Came a raspy, deep voice, and Keith looked up, and into the face of another man. This one was taller, broader and in a priest’s habit. “What have you been babbling about to this young man, Champion?”

Keith stood and watched in horror as large hands clasped Takashi’s shoulders and spun him around, the handsome clergyman shaking and murmuring.

“No, not again…please.”

“Did you think I could not hear you, blaspheming in the house of God?” The shadows on the walls grew, disfiguring and turning grotesque.  
“Father, please…no. I-“ Takashi begged, his robes slowly falling to tatters, baring bruises and lacerations across his body. Keith winced, but couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene.

Keith heard it, the whistle of metal through the air, before he saw the blade withdraw from the priest’s robes. Blood, warm and wet, sprayed from Takashi’s hidden face and splattered the priest’s garb, some flicking from the blade onto Keith’s face, and he flinched in abject horror.

“This is your divine punishment. It is as God wills it.”

Keith watched the blood spray across the cross on the wall, coating the plaque beside it in dripping black.

_The Church of Daibazaal Consecration Cross_  
anointed by our own Archbishop Zarkon  
to consecrate this our holy sanctuary  
in the name of the Father and  
the Holy Spirit.  
For the Glory of God.

“Keith!” Takashi shouted, falling to his knees before the Father as the priest’s appearance spoiled before Keith’s eyes, growing aged, his eyes aglow a terrible sickly colour, skin wrinkling and teeth elongating. His slitted eyes rose from Takashi’s shaking form and the blood slowly pooling on the marble, to Keith’s face.

Keith’s breath caught hard in his throat, choking him. The beautiful rose window above Keith’s head exploded into a million pieces, raining shards onto the ground below.

“KEITH, RUN!”

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely plan to turn this into a multi chapter fic...don't worry if you are worrying. Please tell me what you think!


End file.
